<p>JohnWesley: I think you are comparing apples to oranges on budgets. It’s easy to do because the budgeting process uses different categories than the Financial Reporting categories. I don’t think the figure you used for Wesleyan was the full operating budget.</p>
<p>Below are the Operating Expense lists from the 2003/04 Year End Financial Reports from both Swarthmore and Wesleyan. I didn’t see 2004/05 posted for Wesleyan yet. As you can see, Wesleyan’s overall operating expense was much larger than Swat’s ($160k to $100k) as you would expect with double the student size.</p>
<p>The reporting categories are roughly comparable. These seem to be more or less standardized in college financial reporting, but there’s wide variation in what is lumped into each slot. I have not seen any case where it is possible to directly compare specific line items from school to school with any confidence that you are actually comparing the same basket of apples.</p>
<p>Instruction: Direct departmental expenses. Faculty and staff wages and benefits are the biggie.</p>
<p>Academic Support: This includes the library expense plus Academic Deans, Provost, etc. Wesleyan calls this line item “Libraries”, so they are probably lumping some of the other support functions into “Instruction”.</p>
<p>Research/public service: Self-explanatory. At Swat, this is mostly stipends paid to to students and associated program costs.</p>
<p>Student Services: Health Center, Psych Services, Career Counseling, Study Abroad counseling, and so on and so forth. This may include Campus Security; I’m not sure.</p>
<p>Institutional Support: This includes everything to keep the place running. Building and Grounds. Maintenance. Interest payments on debt incurred building new buildings. Utilities. Taxes. Accounting Office. Payroll Office. Legal fees. Supplies. You name it. This item is going to vary a lot depending on the scope of maintenance projects and the debt on new buildings. For example, this line item at Swat included $8 million of interest repayment on the cost of three major new building projects.</p>
<p>Auxilliary Actitivies: This is mostly the cost of food services and renting dorm rooms to students, plus other stuff like operating a bookstore. At Swat, it may also include the cost of operating the Arboreteum Office, the Lang Center for Social Responsibility, costs associated with renting athletic fields to summer sports camps, etc.</p>
<p>Swarthmore</p>
<p>Instruction 34,570
Academic support 11,931
Research and public service 4,213
Student services 10,002
Institutional support 21,771
Auxiliary activities 17,374</p>
<p>Total expenses 99,861</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/finance/financeDept/reporting/AFP03_04/finResult.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/finance/financeDept/reporting/AFP03_04/finResult.pdf</a></p>
<p>Wesleyan</p>
<p>Instruction 74,172
Libraries 9,992 (Swat inc. this in “academic support”)
Student services 9,248
Institutional support 17,130
Other 1,726 933
Auxiliary activities 36,984
Research 10,505</p>
<p>Total expenditures 159,757</p>